S is for Sea Spray

This post could also have been entitled 'S is for Shipping' or 'S for is Serious Accident' or the long-winded and tongue-twisted, yet descriptive, 'S is for Serious Shipping Accident on the Sea Spray'. 

The Sea Spray is another of the handful of ships owned at some stage by our Robert. From what little research I have done in preparation for this belated S posting (yes, I am aware that the AtoZ Challenge was supposed to finish on Monday but I am determined to complete it, date be damned!) it appears the 296 ton brig was built in 1864, purchased at some point by our Robert and then put on the run between Newcastle and New Zealand delivering coal, timber or even expensive champange! During one such ditch crossing, having disgorged one load of cargo and while being filled with another, our Robert who not only owned the ship but also worked in the capacity of boatswain, suffered yet another serious accident which saw him knocked unconscious, mostly buried under ballast and assumed dead. 

He survived with nothing more than concussion, thankfully, but the accident underscores the seriousness and risk involved in many occupations and in particular, shipbuilding and/or sailing as many other seamen aren't so fortunate to return from a journey. Two of Robert's brother included. 

[1] Auckland Star, Volume VI, Issue 1680, 7 July 1875, Page 2. Found on NZ's answer to Trove, Papers Past. 

H is for Harold

H is for Homes Hats Harold. 

If you've checked out the tab headed April 2012's A to Z Blogging Challenge Details you will have noticed the list of the topics I have written about/plan to write about. You're then probably wondering how on earth I have changed from 'Homes' to 'Hats' to 'Harold'? 

H was going to be for the various houses our ancestors called home but that will be more fun when I have photos. 

H was then going to be for 'hats' as Pa was a hat salesman, as was his father but I don't have enough detail yet so I'll save that topic for another time. 

So now H is for Harold. As in Captain Torquil Harold Urquhart (more commonly known by his middle name than his awesomely Norse-sounding first name). 

I should note that this post is not so much about what I know of Harold, rather how I found him and why this finding is so important (I'm very excited by this finding. I know. I need a life!).  

He first came to my attention a few years ago thanks to a reference on the Stockton Historical Society's old webpage next to our Robert's name as partner in the Flying Cloud. A few lazy searches then didn't turn up anything more about this Mr Urquhart (not even a first name!) so I left him alone. That is, until more recently, when I was sifting through the treasures on Trove relating to the Flying Cloud. I found that Mr Urquhart was Captain Torquil Harold Urquhart, and the captain at the helm when the Flying Cloud was wrecked.  

Enter my friend Google. Searching this long full name returned a small post made by a Melbourne-based genie requesting information anyone might have had relating to such a named person and his marriage to an Elspet Cameron who had also been married to an Alexander Mearns. Elspet hadn't come to Australia, had she?

A faint little bell rang... there was a very short mention of a wedding at our Robert's residence in Wickham in 1886...

The names of the blushing bride, a Helen Mearns, and groom, James M'Lauchlin, were completely unfamiliar at the time of first reading. That our Robert was the 'uncle of the bride' though meant it was probably a married sister's daughter walking down the aisle. By a process of elimination: Jane married a Horn and had remained in Scotland, Jessy died in infancy... of course! The newest dead rel, Elspet! Coupled with the suggestion she had married a Mearn and then Harold meant that a whole new branch began flowering. More exciting is that I hadn't realised that Robert had any family from the old country join him in Australia and here he was, living in the same area as his little sister! 

A few more searches on Trove, Ancestry.com.au's assisted immigrant lists and NSW Births, Deaths and Marriages and I worked out the following:

Elspet emigrated to Australia in 1857 onboard the Monica.  

She married Alexander Mearns in 1960. Their only child, Helen Innes Elizabeth Mearns, was born in 1861. Sadly Alexander died in 1864.

Not long after, in 1866, Elspet married Torquil Harold Urquhart. 

When Flying Cloud wrecked off the coast of South Australia on 4 April 1870 not only was Capt. Urquhart at the helm but he was onboard with his family - a Mrs Urquhart and Miss Urquhart. (I have jumped to the conclusion that this is Helen Mearns as Harold and Elspet didn't have any children together).

Elspeth died aged 42 in 1871.  

Not long after it seems, Harold stopped sailing and moved to Launceston where he remarried and remained until his death in 1894. 

I have to say a massive thanks to the Melbourne-based genie who I emailed in response to his post and who so quickly and generously shared his research and documents with me, and so has splashed a bit more colour and shed more light to an otherwise dark and unexplored corner of the family line. With his permission I will hopefully share these findings in due course! 

And, this whole discovery - that Elspet came to Australia and began her own family and therefore branch of a tree - goes to show that exlineal family are just as important as direct ones!

F is for Flying Cloud

Not as in the 1851 clipper that set the fastest sailing time between New York and San Francisco. 
Not as in the immigrant ship that brought typhus to Sydney in 1864 and which was criminally under-rationed on its arrival. 
Not as in the Airship R-505 (also known as a blimp). 
Not as in the mining holding.
And, not as in the "very handsome" thorough-bred horse once owned by Mr E. Mitchell Esq. 


F is for the brig Flying Cloud built in Omaha, New Zealand in March 1867, sold at auction on 29 August 1867 after some serious controversy in New Zealand (which I am still investigating) and put on berth to Sydney where it was purchased by our Robert, in partnership with Messrs. Urquhart and McLaughlan, on 5 October 1867 for the sum of £2450. 

22 August 1867 Daily Southern Cross 

Variously referred to in newspaper records as a brig, a barque and a schooner (which are actually all quite different types of ships) the Flying Cloud was approximately 323 tons of Kiwi construction and timber. As best I can tell she was actually a "brig" which traditionally are squared-rigged, two masted ships. 
 She was put to use sailing between Australian ports such as Adelaide, Sydney and Newcastle, and as far as Hong Kong and Mauritius carrying shipments of coal and sugar. On one such journey between Mauritius and Australia, a seamen by the name of James Harris was lost overboard. Sadly,  she was wrecked off of Cape Banks in South Australia on 4 April 1870, thankfully, with all crew saved.
She is just one of a handful of ships owned by our Robert but not the only to end in pieces.


Because of the popularity of the name it's hard to determine which ship is being referred to in various articles so I will update you as I know more!

D is for Death

As in the Leveller. As in the other certainty in life (after taxes of course). As in the accidental death of "a young man working at Mr. Cameron's sawmills at Wickham". [1]

In times past I think it's fair to generalise that occupational health and safety probably wasn't a priority. Deaths at work for those who relied on their physicality to earn a living were unfortunately all too common: in factories and mines, on building sites and in shipyards. From the gravity of the injury suffered by our Robert  and the nature of work undertaken in sawmills generally, it's clear that this was a risky business. Such deaths, while always tragic, would no doubt have occurred more regularly than they should have and have been reported in the newspaper (if for no other reason than to publicly acknowledge the loss of someone's father / brother / husband). And the seriousness of this awful work-place accident was such that it was always going to be reported and reported widely, but what surprised me when I found it (again, on Trove) was the detail with which it was reported.

The "melancholy and fatal accident" [2] of nineteen year old Andrew Crossley, who was employed as an engine driver at the Wickham sawmill owned by our Robert, occurred on Thursday, 11 May 1871. It was reported that Saturday in the Maitland Mercury [3] and then in the Empire in Sydney on Monday [2]. On Tuesday, by which time there had been an inquest into the incident, the Sydney Morning Herald featured an article which painted as blood-spattered a picture of the event as "the scene of the terrible casualty" was at the time the article's author visited it. It wasn't enough to communicate that poor Andrew Crossley "had been completely cut in two by one of the circular saws" the reporter writes [if you're feeling queasy, probably best not to read on...]:

"the travelling bench, the saw, the adjacent timber, the tie-beams, and even the interior of the roofing thickly be-splattered with blood and portions of the bone and flesh from the body of the unfortunate deceased. The corpse presented a frightful spectacle, a deep gash extended from immediately under the sternum to the vicinity of the right knee, completely severing the chest and laying open the whole of the intestines, and the pallor of the body showed it to be completely emptied of blood." [1]

How exactly he came to be on the saw is a little bit speculative. There is no suggestion that it was anything sinister. In fact, the inquest made a verdict of accidental death with no blame to be attached to anyone connected with the works. But, while many of his workmates were present when the accident happened and in fact helped pull him off the saw, none of them witnessed exactly how he came to be on the saw. They either "heard a noise from the saw, as if it was cutting through a piece of wood, .. turned around and saw deceased lying on the front of the saw", "heard a crash; ... looked up and deceased was across the saw" or "stopped down to put some sawdust into the bag: when [they] looked up [they] saw him fast on the saw; [they] heard no noise".[1][*] What was suggested was that he took a route through the machinery to short-cut a task or caught his heel on the saw and in one short moment of poor judgement, making one tiny mistake - he paid with his life. 

Unidentified sawmill, NSW.
This image was scanned from a negative in the Bert Lovett collection.
It is part of the Norm Barney Photographic Collection,
held by Cultural Collections at the University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

[1] 1871 'THE FRIGHTFUL SAWMILL ACCIDENT AT NEWCASTLE.', The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), 16 May, p. 3, viewed 4 April, 2012, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13238822

[2] 1871 'MELANCHOLY AND FATAL ACCIDENT.', Empire(Sydney, NSW : 1850 - 1875), 15 May, p. 3, viewed 4 April, 2012, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article60872068

[3] 1871 'LOCAL NEWS.', The Maitland Mercury & Hunter River General Advertiser (NSW : 1843 - 1893), 13 May, p. 3, viewed 4 April, 2012, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article18753993


[*] It's always interesting reading witness account as no one person ever remembers the same details (or maybe that's just the lawyer in me?)

A is for Accident

Any regular readers may have noticed a new image on the right hand-side of this blog, as well as a new page tap above this post 'April 2012's A to Z Blogging Challenge'. Today, therefore, is day one of blogging in alphabetical order of my chosen subject matter being, of course, Cam's Fam. And so...

A is for Accident. 

As in 'an accident of a very serious nature [that] happened ... to Mr Cameron, of Wickham steam saw-mills, by which it is greatly feared he will lose his right hand' [1]

I found this reference searching the aptly named Trove website of digitised Australian newspapers. It is exactly that: a treasure trove of information and revelations about the past. And, to my excitement, our past!

The Mr Cameron referred to in the article on p. 3 of Maitland Mercury & Hunter River General Advertiser is our Robert, formerly of Garmouth. While I have only really fed you tidbits of his background, (with more to be revealed in due course), an accident involving him was newsworthy because our Robert was quite the entrepreneur and pioneering businessman in the fledgling Hunter region of the mid to late 1800s. 

At various periods of his life he was a shipbuilder, government contractor, and timber merchant. At the time of the accident in 1873 he was the owner of a saw-mill in Wickham. Thankfully it didn't appear to incapacitate him as he died at the grand old age of 80 but, with no occupational health and safety officers to provide follow-up reports on the incident, it is a mystery as to whether our Robert did indeed lose his right hand...

[1] 1873 'NEWCASTLE.', The Maitland Mercury & Hunter River General Advertiser (NSW : 1843 - 1893), 13 March, p. 3, viewed 1 April, 2012, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article18771864. 

SERIOUS ACCIDENT.-We regret to learn that an accident of a very serious nature happened, on    Saturday, to Mr. Cameron, of the Wickham steam saw- mills, by which it is greatly to be feared he will lose his right hand. It appears that Mr. Cameron was adjusting some part of the machinery, when, in withdrawing his hand, he got it in between the cylinder and the bench, thereby severely crushing it. Although a very serious affair, we are glad to be able to state that Mr. Cameron is able to get about and look after his business.